Performance Evaluation Of Some Manually Operated Weeders Used In Jhum Cultivation In Hill Regions Of Arunachal Pradesh

Manual weeding is a labor intensive and time consuming operation in jhum cultivation in hill region of Arunachal Pradesh. However the scarcity of labor during the peak season results in increased of labor wages and delay in weeding operation which ultimately reduced the yield of crop. The present study was undertaken with an objective to evaluate field performance of four different types of manually operated weeders namely wheel hoe with tines, wheel hoe with sweep blade, peg type dry-land weeder and straight blade hand hoe. The trail was conducted in the farmer’s cabbage field located at Lakhi village of Papum Pare district of Arunachal Pradesh. The average effective field capacity of 0.0185, 0.022, 0.016, and 0.017 ha/h, respectively were observed for wheel hoe with tine, wheel hoe with sweep type blade, peg type dry-land weeder and straight blade hand hoe at forward speed of 0.285, 0.338, 0.290 and 0.270 m/s respectively. The result revealed that maximum weeding efficiency of 79.72% was recorded for sweep type followed by straight blade (78.19%), tine type (75.71%) and peg type dry-land weeder (72.50%). Wheel hoe with sweep type blade also recorded the lowest labor requirement of 51 man-h per hectare followed by 56 man-h, 66 man-h and 70 man-h per hectare for wheel hoe with tines, straight blade hand hoe and peg type dry-land weeders respectively. Percentage plant damage was highest under straight blade hoe (2.5%) followed by hoe with tine (1.5%), hoe with sweep type blade (1%) and peg type dry-land weeder (0%). Among the weeders, peg type dry-land weeder required minimum power input of 0.071 kW (0.096 hp) followed by straight blade hoe 0.079 kW (0.107 hp), hoe with sweep type blade 0.105 kW (0.142 hp) and wheel hoe with tine weeder 0.112kW (0.152 hp). However the maximum performance index of (1222.75) was observed for wheel hoe sweep type blade followed by straight blade hand hoe (1211.21), peg type dry-land weeder (1208.33) and wheel hoe with tines (976.34).